Results tagged ‘ Joe Girardi ’

Pitching inside is part of Jeremy Guthrie’s game, a critical component that has helped the Orioles right-hander put together a resurgent 2010 season. But Yankees manager Joe Girardi doesn’t have to like it.

Following New York’s 11-3 rout of Baltimore on Saturday night, Girardi spoke out about Guthrie’s propensity for hit batsmen — which includes 10 Yankees since July 28, 2008 — his latest striking Derek Jeter’s left elbow with the first pitch of the game.

“[There’s] too many. Just too many,” Girardi said of Guthrie’s 13 hit batters, second in the Majors only to Yankees starter A.J. Burnett’s 16. “I don’t really understand it. I know he likes to pitch inside, but it’s too many. And that doesn’t include the ones in Spring Training.”

Guthrie plunked Mark Teixeira -who missed the several days following — and Francisco Cervelli in Grapefruit League action and Girardi also aired his frustrations this spring. When asked following Saturday’s game if he thought Guthrie was purposely hitting Yankees, Girardi said he didn’t know.

” You’ll have to ask him,” he said. “My thought is it’s way too many.”

Neither Jeter or Guthrie took offense to the first-pitch fastball that afforded Jeter first base, with the Yankees captain calling Guthrie “effectively wild” and saying he took no offense to being hit. Following Jeter’s plunking, neither bench was warned and home plate umpire Tony Randazzo didn’t deem it necessary to speak to Guthrie, furthering the case that it was accidental.

“[I was] just trying to go inside,” said Guthrie, who has made a conscious effort to be more aggressive this season. “Derek knows I am going to throw the ball in there all day long, that’s the way I approach it. So I guess it was a good indicator when I tried to throw the pitches away later on in the game they went inside and when I tried to throw that one inside it went way inside. So it’s just a matter of not having great command [on Saturday night.]”

“I don’t read anything into it all,” Jeter said of Guthrie’s pitch and tendency to hit more Yankees batters than any other Major League squad.

Guthrie allowed a season-high seven runs (six earned) over a season-low 4 2/3 innings and said he was “embarrassed” by the outing in his postgame remarks, apologizing to teammates and fans on hand for the Orioles’ 8-3 loss to the Yankees.

On Thursday afternoon, the nameplate above Guthrie’s locker was gone as were most of his belongings, besides a few jerseys. Asked if he needed to remove some of the clutter, the right-hander agreed that was part of it.

“I think he really wanted to get one under his belt [Wednesday] night against the Yankees,” Trembley said of Guthrie prior to Thursday’s series finale. “It didn’t happen for him, and I think he was disappointed. He felt responsible for it, and I told him today that he shouldn’t feel that way. He’s a guy with a lot of pride. He works real hard. I think he expects himself to be perfect all of the time. When he’s not, he takes responsibility for that and it bothers him.”

Trembley said he was on hand to film a MASN commercial earlier this season and saw Guthrie getting his running in despite a torrential downpour.

“The guy just prepares himself. He works, he cares,” Trembley said. “He’s coming off a season that wasn’t up to his standards.”

Guthrie (0-3) is winless in five starts this year, but has improved his numbers considerably from last season. He had tossed four straight quality starts prior to Wednesday and -most importantly – limited opponents to just two homers. Robinson Cano tagged Guthrie for his third long ball of the season Wednesday. Guthrie led the American League in losses (17) and home runs allowed last season (35) and has made a conscious effort to revert back to his ’08 and ’07 self.

“Let me start by saying I’m embarrassed by the way the game started, I was embarrassed by the way the game finished,” Guthrie said following Wednesday’s loss in front of a crowd of 17,248 at Camden Yards.

“I’m apologetic to fans who pay to come and watch the Orioles and watch us lose, in this case, because of me. I’m apologetic to teammates for the inability to help them win a game in four starts. I’m apologetic to Jorge [Posada] if he is to miss any time for yanking a pitch and hitting him.”

Also, my colleague at Yankees.com Bryan Hoch tells me Posada’s plunking was still a topic of pregame discussion for Joe Girardi. Girardi had some words about Guthrie’s inability to command the inside pitch following last night’s game. Since the start of 2008, Guthrie has hit 17 batters, nine have been Yankees. And that’s not including the pitch that Guthrie hit Mark Teixeira with in Spring Training.

This will be in tonight’s game story as well, but wanted to make sure it didn’t get bypassed. Yankees manager Joe Girardi was not happy about Jeremy Guthrie hitting Jorge Posada in the right knee in the second innings of Wednesday’s game. Guthrie also hit Mark Teixeira in the right elbow in a Spring Training game on March 29, and combined with Posada’s plunking, it was enough to prompt some choice words.

“I really don’t think you’re trying to lead off an inning by hitting a guy. I don’t think he’s doing it on purpose, but he hits a lot of people. It’s frustrating for us,” Girardi said. We know he’s going to pitch inside and I don’t have a problem with pitching inside. But what do you expect, me to be happy our guys are getting plunked? I’m frustrated by it. I wish he had better command. “

“I like our guys to pitch inside, but when our guys are getting plunked, I’m not going to be happy about it. We don’t have Posada probably (Thursday), and we missed Tex for a few days in Spring Training. If it was during the season, we would have lost Tex for three or four days. I’m not criticizing Jeremy Guthrie, I’m just saying I’m frustrated by it.”

Posada told reporters he didn’t think it was a DL scenario and Guthrie apologized for the pitch, which was unintentional.

“I’m apologetic for the fact that if he were to miss some time, that would be a shame that it was a pitch that got away from me that had that result,” Guthrie said. “But ultimately, I’m going out there and trying to compete. I don’t ever want to give up free baserunners because I can’t afford those as we’ve seen throughout my career.”

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